All of our products come with the Ray Tubes One Year Warranty. This warranty covers manufacturing defects for twelve months after purchase. If you're having issues with your tubes, you should reach out to the store where you bought your Ray Tubes product. They'll help you determine whether a replacement is necessary under the warranty.
The Philosophy
Why have a warranty in the first place? Most vacuum tubes don't come with one. Even when they do, they might come with weird conditions that void the warranty if it's used with a model of amp that's known to be rough on tubes. For most manufacturers, their responsibilities end when you receive their vacuum tube. We have a different philosophy. We believe that everyone who buys our tubes deserves at least a year of quality, hassle-free sound, and if our tubes get in the way of your bliss, we'll make it right.
A Tangent on Manufacturing
Investing in our manufacturing process is what allows us to offer our warranty. For each tube we offer, we pick the manufacturing partner best suited to the job. This is trickier than it sounds. Factories that excel at making 12AU7s might not be the best choice for 300Bs. To make things more complicated, the machinery involved is decades old and almost impossible to replace.
It's easy to think of machine-made products as being perfect carbon copies of each other. This is never really true, and it's even less true of vacuum tubes than most other products. The level of expertise and artistry required to maintain the production line is very high, which means that tube manufacturing is closer to a craft requiring artisanal skill than it is to a mass production process. That's why we put so much effort into our manufacturing and quality control processes. We know that each tube is a unique object that needs to be individually assessed.
No matter how hard we try, though, there's no way to guarantee our tubes are defect-free—hence our warranty.
The Details
The Ray Tubes One Year Warranty is tied to the original invoice and the serial number listed on the box. This means that it’s transferable—as long as you have those two things, you’ll be able to make a claim under the warranty even if you weren’t the original purchaser. So if you’re giving Ray Tubes as a gift, make sure to remind your recipient where you got them! (They do make a great gift—just ask Steve Guttenberg.)
If you suspect you're having an issue with your tubes, the first step is to reach out to the original point of purchase. Have your invoice and serial number ready. It's also a good idea to keep a record of the problems and when they occured—this will help the store's support team troubleshoot your issue. If it turns out that a tube is defective, they’ll facilitate the repair or replacement process for you, as appropriate. Depending on the policy of the retail store in question, you may be responsible for physically returning the tubes to the store. If you want more details about a specific store’s policies, it’s best to get in touch with them directly.
Burn-in and Break-in
As part of our quality control process, we burn tubes in for 24 hours. This catches most serious issues. However, the first 48 to 96 hours of use after you receive your tubes—the "breaking in" period—will still be very transformative. During this time, it's normal to notice minor issues like background noise, a slight imbalance, or harshness. These issues will typically go away as you put more time on the tubes. Therefore, please have patience in the early life of the tube! If the problems persist beyond that initial window, feel free to reach out to your point of purchase.
Matched Sets
If one tube of a matched pair or quad fails and needs to be replaced, most businesses will only replace that one tube. We replace the whole set. In principle, it's easy to identify a tube that will fit with the rest of the matched set and replace only the flawed tube, but we think that's a bad idea for two reasons. First, we know the value of peace of mind. We'd rather replace the whole set than have our customers worrying whether the other tubes will eventually fail, too. Second, even if we find the perfect matching tube on paper, that tube will be brand new. As tubes are broken in, their sound develops. That means a brand new replacement in a pair or quad will never truly be matched.
In other words, we think that if a single tube in a matched set fails, it's the same thing as the whole set failing, and it's our responsibility to replace all the tubes in that set.
Need more help?
If you have any further questions, you can turn to the Warranty section of our FAQ. If that still doesn't answer your question, feel free to reach out.